With the mergers and alliance changes going on, I think a lot of us are modifying what programs we credit, where we have status, who'll we'll book on in 2009 etc. Wanted to let fellow-FTers know about a possible glitch in your EUA chances on NW if you do a switch. If you change programs on a partially flown itinerary where NW was in the outbound, the EUA processor doesn't work with your new partner higher status. You don't get EUA'd at all.

Here's the background on the scenario:

I got a match to CO Platinum from my UA 1K status, and got a match to DL Gold (DL won't match top-level) from that same UA status. Given I'm a 125K/year flyer the last year or so, I can even likely keep both, but worst case I go Silver in one and Plat in the other. I expect by end-of-year 2009, that CO status will also be my *A status, while the DL status will of course be my combined DL/NW status. I plan to book/fly mostly CO, and DL/NW next year.

However, that means that I no longer have any need of requalifying as NW Silver this year. After flying my most recent outbound on NW (a trip I'm still on), I worked the numbers and even with the loss of some MtnsofMiles points from not crediting NW, I end up in better shape miles-wise by early 2009 if I credit all my remaining NW flights to CO while CO is still in partnership for miles and upgrades. Get my 125% (CO still has it for now) Platinum RDM bonus for my NW flights and a much higher priority for NW upgrades. So I changed my NW number out for my CO number on all my NW itins.

Now here's the rub: My upgrade did not go through at the Plat window. It also did not go through at the Gold window, and it's now 2 days out which lately (and by looking at availability dropping) is the de facto Silver window. After several calls to NW from T-6 down to T-3, having them remove any traces of my NW# and Silver status from the res, all the agents agree that the only number in there is my CO#, they see my CO Platinum status, they see my CO-based ST Elite+ status, and they still are EUAing CO elites. But the EUA processor for some reason will not upgrade me. The agents can't/won't upgrade me, so for this trip Thursday at least, I'm either in the back (exits, not bad anyway) or have to check at the airport. The last agent I spoke with told me that once you've flown an outbound under one FF#, the EUA process doesn't work properly if you change the number for the return.

I already know that RDM/EQM works right when you switch program on NWA.com; I've switched flights for MrsXS (no status on any ST carrier) from DL to CO mid-trip on NWA when she needed to balance out her earnings up to award levels on each partner. But somehow the EUA process gets hosed if you switch programs on a partially-flown itinerary.

I already posted a few earlier notes on this in a reply to another thread, but now that I have this info from an NWA agent I thought I'd highlight it. I assume the same issue would occur once the DL upgrade reciprocity happens, if somebody who has higher DL status then decides to swap in their DL number for the remaining legs on NW in a partially-flown itinerary where NW was in the original.

I was assured that my 2 remaining totally-unflown reservations should get upgraded at the Plat window from my CO status (well assuming that they keep the complimentary upgrades with CO until year-end). Guess I'll wait and see.

If anyone has other datapoints on this it would be good to know your experience. I'm not complaining; I think getting 225% total RDM for these flights into the program that will be next year's primary for me instead of 150% RDM into the program I've pretty much burned down to loose change is a fair exchange for losing this one upgrade. But it would be nice to get the upgrade anyway, and I wanted others to be aware of the issue if you're doing something similar with your programs.